Tiny
by ipikachooseyou
Summary: Mycroft is left home alone to watch Sherbeard the Pirate. Subsequently, Tiny-Sherlock happens.


**Author's Note:** I haven't written _any_ fanfiction in years. Well, published any of it at least. Behold, when plotbunnies attack.

* * *

"No, Sherlock, I do not want to play pirates _again_." Mycroft said from across the room, doodling away in a spare notebook.

"I'm BORED, Myc! We're on holiday, we should do SOMETHING!" Mycroft only put his face closer to the sheet of paper he was drawing on. It had seemed like a good idea at first to put the two together in the same room. They needed the spare room for their grandmum who would be moving in with them following her fall a few weeks ago. Sherlock was still young and Mycroft was...not as young, but ideally, they had the entire holiday to get used to the arrangement without having to work around Mycroft running in and out of the house for school. Sherlock would be entering Year One come next term but Mycroft was already about to enter Year Eight. Sherlock had originally entered Primary School but due to his...inability to cooperate with classmates in a traditional manner, they had withdrawn him and instead chose to educate him at home for a year until he was ready to enter at five years old (not that it had made much of a difference, but it was in the best interest for the others).

"Lock, it's called holiday for a reason. You are supposed to relax and prepare for the next year not-what are you doing?" Sherlock had bolted out of bed without warning and was suddenly running down the stairs and out the door. "Sherlock!" His answer was the rear door opening and closing. Mycroft sighed and then took off after his younger brother. Normally, Sherlock would have been intercepted by his parents, but they had stepped out to go make more arrangements for their grandmother and had left it up to Mycroft to watch Sherlock.

"We know he can be a handful, Mycroft," his father had said to him, "but we trust that you can do us just this one favor." His mother had nervously begun tugging at her jacket. "We would have called a baby-sitter but..."

"I know, Sherlock has scared them all off," Mycroft said half-sighing. All he had wanted to do between terms was relax and breathe and not have to worry about his brother, the tiny sociopath, running around him trying to rope him into something. That plan had failed.

"We will be back soon, My, promise. The number for the office we will be at is on the table should you need anything. Mrs. Nestor is home next door if you can't reach us and there's an...emergency."

"Or if Sherlock happens." They had nodded and with a gulp and a deep breath, they stepped out the door and into the car. Mycroft had then gone upstairs to find Sherlock raiding through his toy chest from when he was younger. Inside, Mycroft had hidden some other personal items, nothing lewd or indecent (he knew better than to hide those in a Sherlock-accessible location), but objects that held some sort of sentimental value.

"Sherlock, no! We are not playing pirates!" Mycroft yelled as he caught Sherlock pilfering through his belongings.

"Argh!" Sherlock growled through an eyepatch their parents had bought for him. "Nobody says no to Sherbeard!" Suddenly, Mycroft had a wooden sword pointed at his face. He swatted it away from him and moved toward Sher-beard. Sherlock didn't care and instead went for another corner of the room, this time with Mycroft's violin in the corner. He had played it for a few years but had given it up for sometime. Sherlock remembered watching his brother play it from when he was a toddler and when his brother wasn't around, he would try to imitate him. While he thought he was managing to play a version of "God Save the Queen," his parents described it to friends as "God Hates the Queen and the Entirety of England." Still, they would commend him on a job well done and tell him to return his brother's violin. He would comply, but only after playing one of his original pieces. His parents had originally asked him to play quieter, but he had said that it helped him think about what to do next. Again, they did not want to stifle their sons' growth or development and let him continue. They invested in earplugs the next day.

"Sherlock, do not touch my violin!"

"Or what?" He picked up the bow and violin and tucked it under his chin. It was still far too large for him, but he still managed to play something along the lines of "Dance of the Hellbound Fairies." Mycroft growled again and went after Sherlock.

"PUT. IT. DOWN." The rage in Mycroft's words and face combined with the force with which he held Sherlock's hand only led to one result: tears. Sherlock began to sob as his brother released his grip on his wrist. "See, Sherlock? This is why you can't just go through my stuff." That only made Sherlock cry louder. He walked over to his bed, still crying, and buried his face in the pillows. "Sherlock, I'm sorry."

"Go away!" Sherlock yelled, though muffled by pillows and tears. "I don't want to talk to you, Myc!" Mycroft sighed. "I hear you still here!"

"Promise me you won't damage or go through anything."

"Go away." Mycroft grabbed his notebook and a pencil and walked out of the room, being sure to take a seat outside the room so he could listen in. He knew that in a few minutes, Sherlock would cry himself to sleep and Mycroft would be able to re-enter in peace. As unpredictable as Sherlock was, on his downtime, he functioned like clockwork. Sure enough, after ten minutes, Sherlock's soft snores could be heard from outside. Mycroft opened the door and took a seat on his bed across the room from him again. Eventually, Sherlock had woken up and with even more energy than he had before. He kept on trying to get Mycroft to play pirates with him...again. "Cuz that's what I'm going to be one day!"

"Sherlock, pirates are not good people."

"Argh!" All attempts to talk sense into the five year old fell on deaf ears and patched eyes.

After taking off after Sherlock, Mycroft stepped outside into the early afternoon haze to find Sherlock digging with a garden trowel by the shed. Dirt, mud, muck, that Mycroft could tolerate and deal with. Knowing Sherlock though, that wasn't all they were going to be digging up.

"Making mud pies, Sherlock?" Trying for some semblance of optimism was always the best option. Never the answer, but always the option.

"No! Look!" Sherlock dug a little deeper and then stepped back and pointed at his findings. Mycroft leaned in, smiling slightly and then his eyes went wide and he gasped.

"Wh...what is that, Sherlock?"

"A squirrel! I found it the other day!"

"Was it alive when you found it?"

He thought for a moment. "I can't remember. But look! I've had it buried for three days now! See what happens!" He had this look of maniacal glee on his face that only proved one thing to Mycroft.

"Cover it up, go back inside, and wash your hands."

"But Mycroft!"

"Go." Sherlock slowly reburied the squirrel, but not before poking it a few times to "test" it as he'd say later. Defeated, for now at least, he walked back into the house and washed his hands. Mycroft looked around to see if any neighbors had seen what his brother had done. No one was around, thankfully, but he knew this wasn't the end just because this wasn't the beginning by any means.

He crossed his fingers and whispered under his breath. "Oh, please just let him use this for good."

That's the most you can hope for when your brother is a tiny sociopath.


End file.
